Part 5: Case Study - Code Club

Code Club is a U.K. network of free after-school clubs to teach children between the ages 9 and 11 to program.  It is volunteer-led and it provides groups with specially written projects to help them learn basic programming.  The projects teach children how to program by showing them how to make computer games, animations and websites.

Their mission is to give every child in the UK the chance to learn to code.  They aim to have Code Club in 25% of primary schools in the UK by the end of 2015.  So far they have 899 clubs across the UK.

Each term, children learn new skills.  Terms 1 & 2 use Scratch to teach programming basics.  Term 3 teaches the basics of web development using HTML and CSS.  Term 4 teaches Python and so on.  Volunteers go to their local club for an hour a week and teach one project per week.  Clubs are usually held in schools, but also can be held in libraries, community centres etc.

Their philosophy: “Code Club is about fun, creativity and learning through exploring. It’s important that the children enjoy their time at Code Club and that it doesn’t feel like another school lesson. They should understand that they’re in charge of the computer, and can (and should) make it do what they want, not the other way around.”

They have also launched Code Club World and already have some clubs in other countries.  The mission of CodeClubWorld.org is to give every child in the world the chance to learn to code by providing project materials and a volunteering framework that supports the running of after-school coding clubs.  So far, they have materials in English, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, German, Norwegian and Ukranian.  They also welcome any offers to translate the materials into your native language.

If you want to learn more, support Code Club or even start your own visit: codeclub.org.uk or for Code Club World: codeclubworld.org.

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